PROLOUGE
"Help us- for God's sake, help us! We're choking to death!"
The man ran a long-fingered hand through his untidy brown hair as he waited for a reply, but all he got from the walkie-talkie was static. Eyes wide with fear, he stared around the empty forest, taking in the uniform, unforgiving rows of pine trees, the billowing curtain of black smoke that hung in the air, and the bones that littered the ground. He coughed, retching and choking in the stinking black fog, then fell to his knees, blinking smoke-sore eyes.
"Hermia? He croaked, waving his hand through the air in a feeble attempt to clear the smoke. "Are you there?"
Hermia's hand took his and guided him gently to her side. "I'm here," she said, cradling his head in her arms. "But, Felyx, we can't last much longer here. We're choking to death, and everyone else has long since passed out. They won't wake up- they never will again. And…" She closed her eyes and held one hand to her mouth, slowly shaking her head. Her long, red hair fell like a curtain over her face.
"What?" Asked Felyx, sitting up sharply and turning her face towards his.
"Hermia, what is it?"
She opened her soft brown eyes and gazed at him sadly.
"They're… changing."
He frowned.
"What do you mean, changing?"
Hermia lowered her voice.
"In their sleep- Felyx, they're turning into monsters!"
CHAPTER ONE
"Mum, I'm going out!"
Anya listened for a moment to the silence ringing throughout the house then, satisfied that her mother had no objection, she swung her red purse over her shoulder and slammed the front door with a bang.
She paused for a moment by the garden gate to breath in the fresh, still morning air, heavily laden with the sweet promise of a new day. Dawn was just beginning to tinge the horizon with gold, the sky was a dreamy, cloudless blue, and the blossom on the hawthorn trees that lined the street had paved the ground with sweet-scented petals. It was going to be a beautiful day.
Smiling widely, Anya skipped down the lane, stirring up storms of hawthorn petals with her slippered feet. She slowed to a dignified walk at the village square, where she was expected to behave as befits a young lady about to come of age rather than, as her father would say, 'a skinny little runt whose head is turned by self-importance'. Anya didn't think she acted self-important, but evidently her father did.
Her father could find fault in anything; when her mother wore comfy old clothes, she was a shabby hag; when she dressed up and wore makeup, she was a wanton slut. If Anya sat inside reading all day, she was called lazy and lifeless; if she stayed out she was a antisocial brat. She was so used to it by now that she just ignored his grumblings and did what she felt like, whether it pleased him or not.
Anya paused by the edge of the village, caught off guard by the sudden, brooding menace of the pine forest. Anya had never left the village because the forest was surrounding them on all sides. To actually go through the forest was unthinkable, simply never done. Everyone born in the village stayed there, and no one expected Anya to do and different.